Can you still use Purgatory Garden's tracks?

[hyouta]

Purgatory Garden is a person (or team, I don't know exactly) who used to publish free BGM online. I love their tracks and would like to use them in a visual novel, but at some point they seem to have disappeared from the web. You can still find reposts of their work, but I don't know if I'm allowed to use anything from them now that they're gone. I've seen some discussions about this in Japanese, but my understanding of the language is too limited for me to reach a conclusion. I also don't understand enough of Japanese law to get my answer from that.

So, does anybody know if you can still use Purgatory Garden's music, despite their absence?

[afrikanwizard]

I am pretty sure you can.

I have been playing free Japanese Doujin and amateur VNs that you can get from sites like www.freem.ne.jp and freegame-mugen.jp and the creators that upload games there are still making wide use of Purgatory's Garden music material.

The last VN I played that used some his/her/their tracks was released about one month ago. As far I know Purgatory Garden site has been missing for months.

[hyouta]

I see, thanks for the insight!

[Imperf3kt]

It depends what the original license was.

Since the tracks were released for free use, I'm assuming something like CC3. 0, which would be fine to use. (guess only, check to be sure)


Also note that copyright only does so much. If an individual / group has disappeared from the face of the planet, who is going to sue you for breach of copyright?